By the Time We Met, Times Had Already Changed
by tia8206
Summary: He goes because she said the balcony door is broken, and they're trying to sell the house.


_"I never took my true heart. I never wrote it down_  
_So when the lights cut out_  
_I was left standing in the wilderness downtown"_

- "We Used to Wait," The Arcade Fire

* * *

It was a shitty thing to do, he thought, when the boxes arrived for him containing his balled-up towels and boxer briefs, his toothbrush in a Ziploc. He'd moved only a mile away but Juliet had mailed the last of his things anyway.

He goes because she said the balcony door is broken, and they're trying to sell the house. He'd had to double back on the way to get his small screwdriver, wondering meanly if he should ask if it would just be better to mail it to her.

Juliet comes out to the porch to get him, dipping her hand into the mailbox next to the front door without taking her eyes from his face. Her lips are pressed together in a sad little smirk; her hair's damp, the edges beginning to dry frizzy, curly. Her feet are bare. He cringes as he thinks of the dirty porch floor; he never could understand how relaxed she could be about walking barefoot, but her toenails are perfectly pink. She'd never painted them before. And she smells like fruit instead of vanilla as usual.

She flips through her mail; they stand outside in the heat. He wants to scream in her face but he doesn't.

"I don't like Miami Herald anymore," he tells her. It comes out of nowhere; she's now clutching a copy and that was what came out.

"Well, I suppose you don't have to read it anymore." She finishes her exploration of the mail, holds out two envelopes to him. "Yours."

Their footsteps creak on the stairs up to the master bedroom. He notices she's moved her desk in here, and the bulletin board too. And that board is as falsely cheerful as ever, snapshots of chubby babies and her happy manufactured families.

The room is dim and cluttered, laundry curled in a heap in a new basket he doesn't recognize. Something lavender-colored on top. Morning sun lights the room from the back, flickering dust motes fluttering to the floor in front of the paned door leading to the back balcony.

He starts cracking open the small tool case as he walks, goes straight to the door, but can't help noticing her (their) bed four feet away. Sees her eyes flick from his face to the bed and back. Juliet sits on the edge of the bed, her bare feet arched like a ballerina's, her toes splayed on the floor. She looks ready to spring at any moment.

"The lock is jammed, I think."

"What?"

"The lock. The door, it doesn't close all the way."

He tries it for himself; the door knob clatters and clicks. "This isn't safe. How long has it been like this?" He's not supposed to care about her anymore, but Jesus, anyone could just get in here.

"I don't know." Juliet smiles too easily, doesn't make eye contact.

He squats on the floor, starts taking apart the door jam. The room is getting hot; he wants to take off his jacket but doesn't trust himself; knows he just has to get out of there as soon as he can. He'd moved out finally two weeks ago, for good reasons. They're too different, she's too fucking clingy, and he was sick of hearing I love you.

"Do you want something to eat?" Juliet asks abruptly. "I haven't eaten yet today." She stands, keeps her arms at her sides. "I have…I could make omelets."

He thinks of all the omelets they'd eaten together in their first summer together, when he was a broke resident and she was an undergrad living on scholarships, she would buy eggs and bright yellow Kraft singles from the deli downstairs. "No, that's OK."

"Are you sure? Or I have, um..." She runs a hand over her face; she looks exhausted. "I don't know."

She'd loved to feed people, had Rachel over for dinners all the time, would be a good grandmother. He watches her retreat, her shoulder blades tight together. He wants (needs) to stop watching her, so he twists around, still squatting on the dusty floor.

Juliet comes back upstairs, the fingers of one hand wrapped around some crackers, a glass of orange juice in the other hand.

He lines up tiny black screws on the floor. She totters back to him. The juice in her glass wobbles. The screwdriver in his own hand shakes. He yanks off the cover of the door jam.

"Thanks," Juliet says. "For helping. Are you sure you don't want anything?"

He turns, looks up at her. After a moment he shakes his head, turns away. He hears her take a bite of cracker, trying to chew it quietly. He watches the ground as crumbs fall near where he squats. He looks up at her again as she wipes the corner of her mouth. He sees her hand; she'd finally stopped biting her fingernails. He lurches to his feet, too close to her. Juliet takes a step back. He touches her arm, the warm muscles shifting under his grasp.

Her lip trembles and she looks away. Tears are leaking from the corners of her eyes, and his first instinct is to let go of her arm right fucking now. Instead he starts wiping them away.

She swallows. "What are you doing?"

"I don't know." He envelopes her. She gasps from the physical force of it and suddenly, his arms around her are getting tighter and tighter. His mouth lunges for her lips and catches them, covered with salty tears and cracker crumbs. She stifles her sob as he makes contact. But she keeps trying to pull her mouth away; she's crying too hard now, even as he unzips her sweatshirt. He slides his hands up under the back of her T-shirt and finds the bra clasp, the satin strip an unwelcome intrusion on the smooth plane of her skin. Just as he gets it undone, sees her breasts spring free underneath her T-shirt, she pulls back.

"What are you doing?" she repeats softly. But she's stopped crying.

"I don't know."

She hesitates. "What do you want?"

He knows what she wants to hear - I still love you, I want you back, I'm so sorry, I miss you. "I guess I want to fuck you," he says slowly.

He notices her face then. It isn't that she's going to start crying again, or that any particular hope is crushed. It's something beyond that. "You really don't care about me, then."

He begins to massage her arm with his left hand. "I care about you enough to tell you the truth."

She wants to argue, he can tell. She's holding back, measuring her words before she speaks. "You should care about me enough to not be doing this to me," she finally says. Doesn't say anything else.

His stomach twists. He shoves the door closed and peels off her clothes.

It's quick, and afterward they lie in her (their) bed, not touching, expertly avoiding each other's limbs like lap swimmers sharing a lane. He still isn't sure what the problem is with her door. The sun through the blinds look like prison bars on the sheets.

He stands and dresses. She doesn't move. "I'm going to call a repairman," he says.

"Bye, Ed." She pulls the covers up to her neck and turns away.


End file.
